


This Is How It Always Ends

by eyeofxana



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, No Apocalypse (Umbrella Academy), One Shot, Ordinary Vanya, because klaus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22013995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyeofxana/pseuds/eyeofxana
Summary: It's April first, and the world isn't ending. It's just dark.Or: Vanya really is ordinary.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47





	This Is How It Always Ends

On the first day of April, two thousand and nineteen, Vanya waits onstage for the rest of the orchestra to arrive. In her nervousness she’s arrived even before tonight’s soloist, even before the violin section’s tediously punctual third chair. Far too early. The theater is empty and still, the lights dim, and she feels like the only person alive for miles. She lifts her violin to crack the stillness, but the chill from outside has followed her in and her hands won’t stay steady. And there’s nothing else here. All around her it’s nothing.

The silence presses in. Luther looks out at the earth, tries to remember what it is he cares about, down there. There must be some reason for the pull in his chest, the longing in his fingertips. There must be something else besides the gadgets and the samples and the packaged foods in their little pouches. He feels distant from everything, but that part isn’t different. It’s just easier to see, now, in the dark.

The night is thick as a blanket. Diego scrapes his hand on something while fumbling for his radio, hisses. The thing blends in too well in the shadows of his car, but he won’t turn on the light when he’s trying to lay low. His fingers close around its shape a moment later. Something’s wrong with it, though. Something missing, something broken, some problem lurking beneath the exterior. He turns at the dial but nothing comes through.

Sometimes nothingness is a comfort. Allison keeps her eyes closed as she sinks slowly under the bathwater, keeps them closed once she’s submerged. Down here in the depths she feels unattached. Incorporeal. She likes to think her thoughts are her greatest enemy, but these days it’s really just herself. Only in this blankness do the distinctions start to strip away. When she resurfaces, back to herself, cold air laps at her cheeks.

The chill could set anyone back in their own body. Klaus leans his head back against the coolness of the brick wall behind him, so startlingly quiet after the club he came from. After a moment, he rummages through his pockets for a baggie. Living in the moment is nice and all, but sometimes all he wants is to be out of the moment. He knows these streets, knows this world, too well—every depravity of it, every viciously sharp piece of darkness that lurks there—and he just wants _away_.

There’s real power in removing yourself from the world. Five isn’t _anywhere_. He rips through time, still giddy with defiance, racing with adrenaline from his bolt out the door. He’ll go as far as he wants. Jumping is like pulling back a curtain, diving through a shock of cold to the other side. It’s come and gone in a split second, but it’s a split second of absolute power, one that shears him away from the entire world and holds him alone. Far from anyone’s reach.

But the longer it lasts, the emptier the distance. Ben watches a group of friends stumble across the street to their taxi, their laughter and singing dissolving in the dark like nothing. His brother sits on the ground beside him with his knees drawn up, too gone to hear a thing Ben says. He feels submerged; so far under that the world around him blurs and wanes. Sometimes he forgets there was ever anything at all.

Everything has faded into nothing. Vanya lingers at the back of the empty theater, wanting something else, always wanting. It’s quiet again, as if the music had never come. When she tries to remember it, the concert and the crowd, all the life around her, the distance is too great. It’s too quiet. And the crowd has gone, it’s all gone, and the lights are shutting off, and the cold of it all is enveloping her. There’s nothing in the dark, and this is how it always is. This is how she’s always left in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I saw the show I wanted a story where Vanya really was ordinary. Obviously that destroys the main premise of the show, but I thought it would be fun to explore anyway. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
